


A foolish road to take

by vermicious_knid



Series: The world turned over [3]
Category: Twelfth Night - Shakespeare
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-20
Updated: 2016-05-20
Packaged: 2018-06-09 15:31:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6912949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vermicious_knid/pseuds/vermicious_knid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Another fluffy installment of my favorite OTP, since I can't seem to leave it alone. </p><p>Viola's thoughts around her feelings for a certain fool.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A foolish road to take

He insists again and again, when he sees my worried frown, or whenever I try not to meet his eye, he tells me that this is how it is done. How otherwise could a marriage survive? Did you think it was really that simple? Every lord and lady has a lover. 

I accept it, and I draw him nearer, closer. He is already there. 

It’s foolish. I know that.  How ironic.  I should know, of all people. Yet I could not refuse him. Maybe it would have been easier if we didn’t want each other so much. So, I let him tell the lie. It makes it a game, makes it stationary and commonplace. Even though we both know it isn’t. 

It starts as a joke. Really nothing but playacting  between us, just him and me. 

“The duke presents himself!” he had curtsied, voice lowered as to sound like the duke. I had giggled like mad, my face flushed from too much wine. He was sprawling across a large chair at the head of the abandoned dinner table, still halfempty glasses of wine and food left out. 

Needless to say, we had both been drunk  that time . The only ones remaining awake and upright at the midsummer’s ball held at  the  castle. 

“And here comes his wife!” I exclaimed, getting up from my chair beside his dramatically. Swaying on my feet, a goblet in my hand raised. 

“here she comes indeed, the great _noble lady_.” he quips and she almost spits out her drink with laughter. 

“Bah! Not so noble, no more than her _husband.”_ she says, eyes pointed at him meaningfully. He wiggles his eyebrows at her. 

“Then we are equals after all!”

“God be praised, how romantic it must be.”

“So what will the duchess have me do next? For Orsino is her slave in love, is he not?”

“His love is not a cage, and so it makes him no slave. He is free to do what he likes.”

“And maybe, this is what I like.” he replies, and I'm not sure what he means by that. His eyes are inexplicably fond as his gaze falls on me, and I turn my head away. 

It is so easy to make excuses to meet. To slip away to secluded corners in castles, the garden, between mirrors  and shrubberies and under bridges at midnight . 

Why do we do it? Why can’t we stop? Just stop. And so I do, for a while. I expect him to do something. To react- but he doesn't. 

For two weeks I successfully avoid the fool altogether –  the name has really become more than a joke, it feels true this time . It is not easy, as he passes through my brother’s household and this one often enough. I avoid our designated meeting places, I run when I see roses. 

But there is no escape, no relief in this absence. And god help me, it is not my conscience that aches. 

The two weeks come to a close and I make the fatal mistake of taking a walk across the park, to clear my head. The hour of twilight, as I recall, which in itself should have been a warning. Of course he is there. Sitting on the stone bridge, playing on a flute. He doesn’t stop when he sees me. 

I’m wearing the boy clothes I used to wear before the marriage, a secret strength to me in times of uncertainty. 

At length he stops playing and turns to me  in the dark . I wait for him to speak. 


End file.
